Year XVII - n.01-2001

IL MORANDINI 2001

IL DIZIONARIO DEI FILM

Zanichelli pp. 1823

The 2001 Morandini dictionary, which has now reached its third edition, has added to its previous list entries for as many as 395 new films distributed on the Italian market over the 1999-2000 season. Compared with the previous issue, the dictionary displays a few changes which make it more interesting and easier to consult. On the whole, the dictionary includes over 17,000 films, released between 1913 and the summer 2000, of which approximately 1000 have been shown on television or even re-produced in a TV version. The dictionary also includes a Window-based CD-ROM which permits consultation of each film review on screen.

L’ITALIA DEGLI SPRECHI DALLA A ALLA ZETA

Raffaele Costa Mondadori pp. 337

Centuries of invasions and abuse have led Italian people to the now rooted and unpleasant belief that power is a synonym for abuse and, above all, waste. The author has plunged into these troubled waters to offer the already embittered Italian tax-payers even fresher evidence in support of their unease about the bad management of public money. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has granted 5 billion lira for the project covering the development of North African lentils and for the genetic improvement of Algerian cereals! Apparently, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has financed, with the Development Cooperation funds, a vocational training project for trade-union middle management in Vietnam, one of the countries that are still subject to a communist regime. For the reasonable price of one billion three hundred thousand lira! And what about the 73 million lira allocated by the Turin town council for a course of martial arts for young nomads?

GENGIS KHAN.

L’EPOPEA DEL LUPO DELLA STEPPA

Homeric Rizzoli pp. 448

That part of mankind that rides with “Genghis Khan” drinks life to the last drop, in passions, in beauty and in the cruelty of the struggle for survival and power. These are men who know how to love their women delicately, joyfully and with pain, with passion and feeling, because there is no doubt as to the role they play in each other’s life and there is no time to cloud the issue. A colourful range of myths, legends, usages and customs, which gradually portray in the mind the world that history often does not mention: there was so much poetry in the world of those Mongols led by the fierce “Genghis Khan”.